LEARN NC

K–12 teaching and learning · from the UNC School of Education

  1. Kindergarten – Grade 5
    1. Introduction
    2. Anchor Standards
    3. Reading: Literature
    4. Reading: Informational Text
    5. Reading: Foundational Skills
    6. Writing
    7. Speaking & Listening
    8. Language
    9. Standard 10: Range, Quality, & Complexity
  2. Grades 6–12 ELA
    1. Anchor Standards
    2. Reading: Literature
    3. Reading: Informational Text
    4. Writing
    5. Speaking & Listening
    6. Language
    7. Standard 10: Range, Quality, & Complexity
  3. Grades 6–12 Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, & Technical Subjects
    1. Anchor Standards
    2. History/Social Studies
    3. Science & Technical Subjects
    4. Writing

Standard 10: Range, Quality, & Complexity

Measuring Text Complexity: Three Factors

Qualitative evaluation of the text

Levels of meaning, structure, language conventionality and clarity, and knowledge demands

Quantitative evaluation of the text

Readability measures and other scores of text complexity

Matching reader to text and task

Reader variables (such as motivation, knowledge, and experiences) and task variables (such as purpose and the complexity generated by the task assigned and the questions posed)

Note

More detailed information on text complexity and how it is measured is contained in Appendix A.

Range of Text Types for 6-12

Students in grades 6–12 apply the Reading standards to the following range of text types, with texts selected from a broad range of cultures and periods.

Literature

Stories

Includes the subgenres of adventure stories, historical fiction, mysteries, myths, science fiction, realistic fiction, allegories, parodies, satire, and graphic novels

Dramas

Includes one-act and multi-act plays, both in written form and on film

Poetry

Includes the subgenres of narrative poems, lyrical poems, free verse poems, sonnets, odes, ballads, and epics

Informational Text

Literary Nonfiction and Historical, Scientific, and Technical Texts

Includes the subgenres of exposition, argument, and functional text in the form of personal essays, speeches, opinion pieces, essays about art or literature, biographies, memoirs, journalism, and historical, scientific, technical, or economic accounts (including digital sources) written for a broad audience

Texts Illustrating the Complexity, Quality, & Range of Student Reading 6-12

Literature: Stories, Drama, Poetry Informational Texts: Literary Nonfiction and Historical, Scientific, and Technical Texts
6-8
  • Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1869)
  • The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain (1876)
  • “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost (1915)
  • The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper (1973)
  • Dragonwings by Laurence Yep (1975)
  • Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor (1976)
  • “Letter on Thomas Jefferson” by John Adams (1776)
  • Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass (1845)
  • “Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat: Address to Parliament on May 13th, 1940” by Winston Churchill (1940)
  • Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad by Ann Petry (1955)
  • Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck (1962)
9-10
  • The Tragedy of Macbeth by William Shakespeare (1592)
  • “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1817)
  • “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe (1845)
  • “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry (1906)
  • The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1939)
  • Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1953)
  • The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara (1975)
  • “Speech to the Second Virginia Convention” by Patrick Henry (1775)
  • “Farewell Address” by George Washington (1796)
  • “Gettysburg Address” by Abraham Lincoln (1863)
  • “State of the Union Address” by Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1941)
  • “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King, Jr. (1964)
  • “Hope, Despair and Memory” by Elie Wiesel (1997)
11-CCR
  • “Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats (1820)
  • Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1848)
  • “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson (1890)
  • The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
  • Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (1937)
  • A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry (1959)
  • The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (2003)
  • Common Sense by Thomas Paine (1776)
  • Walden by Henry David Thoreau (1854)
  • “Society and Solitude” by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1857)
  • “The Fallacy of Success” by G. K. Chesterton (1909)
  • Black Boy by Richard Wright (1945)
  • “Politics and the English Language” by George Orwell (1946)
  • “Take the Tortillas Out of Your Poetry” by Rudolfo Anaya (1995)

Note:

Given space limitations, the illustrative texts listed above are meant only to show individual titles that are representative of a range of topics and genres. (See Appendix B for excerpts of these and other texts illustrative of grades 6–12 text complexity, quality, and range.) At a curricular or instructional level, within and across grade levels, texts need to be selected around topics or themes that generate knowledge and allow students to study those topics or themes in depth.